


desert nights (are cold, like my heart)

by ArcadeGhostAdventurer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Art & Story, Discord Bingo Fill - Loneliness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fan Comics, Fanart, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Things go sideways, he gets stranded, insert tony, steve takes a secret mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 06:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20861993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcadeGhostAdventurer/pseuds/ArcadeGhostAdventurer
Summary: Steve shouldn't have taken that mission.





	desert nights (are cold, like my heart)

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyo!! This has a Tumblr post which gained a bit of traction before I could also add it to AO3 but better late than never I guess. For archieving purposes, here it is! I hope you like it!
> 
> Comments are my bread and Nutella. Give me.

*

_“Do you hear me, Steve? I’ll find you! I’ll-” _

The connection sizzles, cuts off. Steve knows there is almost no way Tony heard him. There is also no reason for him to come and rescue Steve. Not after what happened. Not after the fights. Not after the one too many clashing opinions. For all Steve knows those could have been shit said in the heat of the moment.

_I’ll find you._

He needs to get to- Get to a place he has signal. Steve is in the middle of the desert but he knows he isn’t in the middle of nowhere. He still remembers the mission map. The desert climate might be ruthless but he is a super soldier for fucks sake. He can do this.

–

Steve won’t survive. He feels it in his bones as he keeps himself straight and moving against the biting cold of the night. At least, he says, at least there is no wind. Air, even at standstill, bites at his hands and feet. His face, his nose and ears went numb long ago.

The day was swelteringly hot. But you can shed clothes. Steve has nothing but his slightly damp stealth gear leeching even more heat from his body, instead of keeping him warm.

There is no rescue coming. There is no rescue coming because no one knows he’s here.

Apart from Tony. 

He wasn’t supposed to know either. And Steve would have been back before he even knew. He didn’t want to be the one keeping things secret. But the mission was necessary.

Tony hadn’t seen it that way.

And now there is no use to it. No use to keeping it secret. No use to the fighst and standing his ground because he is going to freeze to death. To death, he is sure of it this time.

All by himself.

–

It had been new. The relationship. Before Steve went and did almost everything in the book that would fucking ruin a relationship. The thought of being able to maybe salvage a piece of that was the only thing that kept Steve going. There was a slight tint of light blue to the horizon now. If he could only stay up long enough for the sun to reach him. Warm him once more…

It was just that, this feeling, this swirling thing in the pit of his stomach that he thought he had left behind was now back. 

21st century had been a big jumble of confusion and loneliness for Steve. There was very little left that he still understood and there was no one, but absolutely no one left that he remembered. Then Tony had came. 

He hadn’t realized Tony was the cure to both. Tony was eager to explain everything, and Steve learned fast. So their conversation moved on to other things. And that became a friendship. And that became more.

Steve hadn’t realized that he carried that feeling with him, even when Tony was not around. 

And now that he had gone and ruined it; lied, kept secrets, went against even the littlest things Tony wanted, he was lonely again.

Truly lonely. There was nothing he could go back to now. His home was burned to cinders.

–

The sun peaks above the horizon, suddenly blinding, not yet heating the ground but a sliver of hope, of salvation. Steve lifts his head. It will be easier to move, once he is warmed up. Once his metabolism kicks up again. He survived alone before, but that was before he knew what it was like to not feel lonely again. Everything feels- Feels more. He wants to give up, give in to that invisible weight on his shoulders. 

A tiny dot apears in the horizon. Steve‘s eyes lock onto it. It grows, rapidly, and there is only one thing that Steve knows flies so fast. 

_Only one man._

In no time, its features become more pronounced. The arms, the legs. The blue light it emits. Steve can hear the humming the repulsors produce with his enchanced hearing.

It is the best sound in the world.

He doesn’t want to assume. He has apologies to make, to whisper into Tony’s skin day after day. If only Tony lets him. But Steve just doesn’t want to feel like that again. He doesn’t want to know what it feels like to lose Tony.

To be lonely, after he has known _this_.


End file.
